


kyuchul | hope in the darkness

by plincess_cho (ai_hao)



Category: Super Junior
Genre: Fluff, Gen, for andie, i love kyuchul, injury line, ish, kyuchul, non-au, uwu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 16:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19338697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ai_hao/pseuds/plincess_cho
Summary: Kyuhyun helps Heechul find his voice.





	kyuchul | hope in the darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [Andie ♡](twitter.com/chuilips)
> 
> This is a parallel fic to [The Bad Luck Club](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17435423).

**Thirteen years ago.**

The netizens are vicious in their attacks, and with each comment, the darkness around Heechul thickens. They’re telling him to die, and if he doesn’t have the decency to do so, they’re asking the company to get rid of him. There are already too many members in Super Junior after all; cut the number back down to twelve to make up for adding that new kid in. The fans and members may hate him, but at least he can sing his fucking lines without his voice breaking.

Then when Heechul does nearly die, the netizens attack him again. How dare he live when there are other, better vocalists to take his place? After all, he’s Kim “Solo Activities” Heechul who’s just bringing the team down. The vitriol is scathing, but Heechul begins to believe them. After all, there’s nobody fighting back for him, and the long process of recovery leaves him with no energy to fight for himself.

When Heechul finally returns, he asks the company to give him fewer lines.

The company doesn’t spend long convincing him to change his mind.

**Twelve years ago.**

Heechul spends more time than he’d like back in the hospital sitting at Kyuhyun’s bedside with his own leg propped up. Kyuhyun doesn’t say much, and Heechul wonders if he’s still afraid of him like the others are. Is it better to be feared or loved? Heechul doesn’t know.

But when he does talk, his voice is faint. 

“What if I never sing again?” he asks.

Heechul wants to laugh and say that’s exactly what he had hoped for when he had woken up from his own set of emergency procedures, but the look on Kyuhyun’s face is sheer anguish. All the kid wants to do is sing, and he hasn’t even gotten a chance to in the year he’s been with Super Junior. 

And now he might never get to sing again, even though his dad did  [ everything he could ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsJy_UvtG2o) to save his son’s voice.

Heechul doesn’t really know what to say, but thankfully he doesn’t have to. A nurse interrupts them to change Kyuhyun’s IV and tells Heechul that he should probably get going. Kyuhyun’s had a long day trying to stay alive.

“I’ll be back later, kid,” he says, but he doesn’t know if Kyuhyun even hears him. The IV has already put him back to sleep.

The nurse follows him out of the hospital room and asks, “Is he your brother?”

Heechul wants to shake his head, but instead he says, “Yeah, I guess he is.”

**Eleven years ago.**

He’s guesting on  _ Youngstreet _ on SBS and does a cover of  [ “Jasmine Flower.” ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPkrFsEP7sY&feature=youtu.be) It doesn’t strain his voice too much, and he can cover it well. Far fewer people listen to celebrities on late night radio than watch music shows, so Heechul hopes that even if he does mess up, fewer people will notice. 

The hosts all clap and compliment his voice, but he doesn’t really believe their praise. Of course they’ll say he sounds good when he’s sitting right in front of them. No good MC will criticize their guest when they’re on air with them if they want celebrities to continue guesting on their show.

He forgets about it the minute he gets back to the dorms. Half the members are leaving for China soon, and all of the chaos involved in going abroad has started already. He half wishes he could go with them and see all of the places Han Geng has told them about, but then he remembers that they’re going there to  _ sing _ and immediately banishes that thought from his head.

He sees Kyuhyun before he leaves. Kyuhyun still looks pale and underweight, the results of nearly dying and coming back to soon. Everyone is a bit nervous about the upcoming endeavor, especially since the fans have already made it perfectly clear that they don’t want to add any more members to Super Junior, but Kyuhyun seems the most apprehensive. He’d barely survived their  _ Don’t Don! _ Promotions. How is he supposed to survive another promotion cycle in a foreign country where he can’t speak the language or call home?

“You okay, kid?” he asks.

Kyuhyun shrugs. “I guess I have to be.” A pause. “It’ll be weird without you, hyung.”

Heechul scoffs. “You’ll be better off without me.”

Kyuhyun shakes his head. “It doesn’t sound the same without you,” he says. He digs into his pocket and pulls out an MP3 player, the same one that he’d had in the hospital. “I heard your performance of ‘Jasmine Flower,’ hyung. It was really good.”

Before Heechul can brush him off, Kyuhyun offers him an earphone and clicks through the MP3 player, looking for something specific. He presses play and motions for Heechul to listen. To Heechul’s surprise, he hears his own voice coming through the headphones.

“What is this?”

“I recorded it,” he says simply. “ [ I thought it sounded nice, so I recorded it ](https://twitter.com/dearmyk0203/status/1142803822152077313) .”

Heechul doesn’t know what to say. This kid, this  _ kid, _ actually recorded his performance? But why?

“Hyung, you do sing really well,” he says. “I really like your voice.” He says it so simply yet so earnestly, staring at him with those big eyes welling with genuine affection, that Heechul has no choice but to believe that his words are true. Besides, Kyuhyun has begun to make a name for himself as Super Junior’s powerhouse vocalist. If anyone should know what a good vocalist is, it should be him, right?

“This kid,” he mutters under his breath after Kyuhyun walks away, but in spite of himself,  [ Heechul feels tears pricking at his eyes ](https://www.instagram.com/p/szH7NiBaDu/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) . This kid indeed.

**Eight years ago.**

He’s laughing with Jungmo, talking about the old days where they were crowded into a space too small for too many people. A lot of things have changed since then, and a lot of people have left. It seems people are leaving left and right these days, and they’re both set to enlist within the year. They’re both going into public service due to injury on Heechul’s part and genetics on Jungmo’s. TRAX is going on hiatus, Super Junior isn’t, and neither of them know what will be waiting for them upon their return.

They reminisce about  _ Band of Brothers _ , and Jungmo says, “What if we did something like that?”

“Like what?” Heechul asks, twisting the top off another bottle of soju.

“Did a collaboration, like a single or something,” Jungmo says.

Heechul shrugs. “I could write lyrics for you,” he offers. 

“You write?” A look of surprise.

He shrugs again. It’s unlike him to be modest, but the scribbles he makes up in his free time probably won’t be acceptable by the company’s standards. They’ve rejected better lyricists than him in the past. But he promises to come up with something for Jungmo, and they leave it at that.

It’s Kyuhyun who catches him humming under his breath while they’re waiting to go on air for another filming. 

“What song is that, hyung?” he asks.

Heechul tries to brush him off. “Something I’m making for Jungmo.”

Kyuhyun puts down his phone. “Are you going to sing with him?”

“Probably not,” Heechul replies.

“Why not?” he asks. “You’re a good singer, hyung. You should sing more.”

Heechul laughs it off but there’s a little something inside of him that’s telling him to listen to Kyuhyun’s words. And that night, when the members are all gathered on the other floor, Heechul tests out his voice in the shower. At first, it’s quiet and mousy, but eventually, he starts belting out nonsense lyrics at the top of his lungs.

_ Maybe, maybe I can do this. _

Two months later, his first music video with Jungmo is released, and Kyuhyun texts him from Olympic Hall.

_ GaemGyu: Congrats, hyung!! It’s good to hear your voice again. _

*

They’re all on  _ Youngstreet  _ together the week before Heechul enlists, and Kyuhyun somehow convinces him to sing the beginning of  [ “7 Years of Love,” ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrHhY5RXeY8) the song he sang during Super Show 2. He figures it’s the last time anyone will hear him sing for two years, so what the hell, let’s do it. 

His voice is soft and hesitant at first but with each successful verse, his voice gets stronger and louder. Kyuhyun’s standing up with him now, and even his presence is soothing. He’s been sick for the better part of this year it seems, and they’re all worried about him. It always makes Heechul laugh: Kyuhyun really went from being the skinny kid with the big head that they all hated to being the one they all have come to love the most.

Heechul finishes his part and goes to hand the mic to Kyuhyun who’s grinning at him with all of the proud admiration in the world. His eyes are shining as he gives him a thumbs up.  _ You did it, hyung!  _

And once they cameras turn off, Kyuhyun’s there hugging him and praising him while Heechul tries to shrug off the compliments.  _ It’s nothing, it’s nothing _ , but it really is something and he has Kyuhyun to thank.

The next week, he enlists, and Super Junior start rehearsing for Super Show 4 without him.

“It’s not the same,” Kyuhyun says.

“I have four lines per song. You’ll live.”

“When you come back, ask the company for more lines.”

Heechul says he’ll think about it.

**Four years ago.**

Yesung is gone, Jungsoo is back, and they’re prepping for their long-awaited seventh album. Of course they waited for their leader to return before starting something new, and Heechul doesn’t blame them. They would’ve managed with Hyukjae because if the past two years have taught them anything, it’s that Super Junior is resilient no matter what comes their way. But the company had wanted to wait for Jungsoo, and secretly, Heechul had too.

The vocal directors are all trying to figure out how to rearrange things to fit the members who will be promoting this cycle. With one of their main vocalists gone, they have more lines to distribute, and it’s Kyuhyun who suggests that Heechul take them.

“Do you want to?” one of the directors asks, a hint of skepticism in her voice. After all, it isn’t exactly a secret that Kim Heechul had been the only idol in a large group, or  _ any _ group really, to ask for fewer lines. 

_ What the hell. Let’s do it. _

He says yes.

*

Heechul’s vocals in their seventh album become a hot topic amongst fans and netizens alike with everyone heaping loads of praise on his vocal abilities. He knows he should feel grateful for all of the love he’s receiving, but he knows how quickly the same people giving him compliments can turn against him with one misstep. It’s hard to trust: to trust netizens, to trust fans, and sometimes to even trust his members.

But when they’re all out to dinner after a filming, the members tell him how well he did.  [ They all express surprise ](https://www.instagram.com/p/szH7NiBaDu/) , as if they’d forgotten that he too is a singer, but not Kyuhyun. 

“I knew you’d be amazing, hyung,” he says, a smile on his face. 

He calls up Jungmo the next day and says, “Let’s make an album.”

**Present day.**

Kyuhyun has all but told him that he’s terrified of returning to television. It’s not because he’s afraid of the fans or the netizens or anything like that, even though there has been a good amount of rumblings on the internet, but it’s because he’s so worried about screwing things up before he’s even properly returned to idol life. Heechul remembers that feeling, but back when he’d returned, Super Junior hadn’t been in the precarious position it is now. 

So when Kyuhyun asks him if he’ll guest on his new show with him, Heechul agrees.

Other members have asked him on shows before, and he usually declines. He already has a million other shows to go on, and the others don’t really need him that badly. They’re all variety veterans who have been in the industry for a decade and a half. They don’t need him.

But Kyuhyun does. Kyuhyun, the kid he’s looked after for the past twelve years. Kyuhyun, the kid whose  [ tragic fate  ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17435423) has always been so intertwined with his. And Kyuhyun, the kid who gave him the courage to sing again. 

So he says yes, and they meet with the PD’s to go over everything. Kyuhyun visibly relaxes when Heechul shows up, fashionably late per usual. 

They record quite a few shows in the month following Kyuhyun’s discharge, and Kyuhyun thanks him every time. “It’s been so much better with you, hyung,” he says, his eyes shining with tears. Heechul reaches out to hug him, and Kyuhyun holds him tightly. Perhaps, he thinks, this is his way of thanking Kyuhyun for giving him the courage to sing again after all those years. He doesn’t say it with words, because words often don’t mean much, but actions do.

And as he stands onstage with Kyuhyun addressing the next generation of idols, he tells them all the story of a skinny kid with an MP3 player who gave him hope when he thought that nothing would ever make him hope again.

He’s made it, they’ve made it. They’re going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love ♡
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/plincess_cho) / [Tumblr](plincess-cho.tumblr.com)


End file.
